


Affairs After a Battle

by OldShrewsburyian



Category: Timeless (TV 2016)
Genre: 19th Century, American Civil War, Angst, Blood and Injury, Canon-Typical Violence, Declarations Of Love, F/M, Friendship, Historical References, Hospitals, Love, Loyalty, Male-Female Friendship, Medicine, Military Uniforms, Team Dynamics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-01
Updated: 2019-04-01
Packaged: 2019-12-26 23:10:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,379
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18292100
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OldShrewsburyian/pseuds/OldShrewsburyian
Summary: From a Tumblr prompt bySugarsweetRomantic: " 'I love you' said over and over, until it is no more than a senseless babble."The Time Team goes to Antietam.





	Affairs After a Battle

“I love you, I love you, I love you, I love you.” Lucy Preston says it because she cannot think of anything else. She says it because it feels like a prayer. She says it because she cannot bear the thought of his dying without having heard those three words from her lips. She has fought for him and beside him; she has trusted him as an ally, and she has entrusted him with the deepest parts of herself; she has held him through his nightmares and her own. She tells herself that he knows, that he must know. But she has never said the words.

_I love you, I love you, I love you._

The mission had, against the odds, been going well. Rufus had, heartened by Jiya’s visions, been navigating the camp with a pleasing consciousness of his own relative invincibility. Wyatt had been embedded in the 2nd U.S. Sharpshooters with a singleminded focus and a joy in camaraderie that Lucy only wished she saw in him more often. And she and Flynn — both in uniform, and the way he looked at her in it did curious things to her heart — had been, inevitably, working as a team. 

They’d found the sleeper. Flynn had (swiftly and efficiently) killed him, and she had gone through his pockets, stuffed his papers into her wool jacket, and replaced them with documents of their own forgery. She’d straightened, and taken a deep breath for the first time in 1862. 

“Thank goodness for Jiya and the Library of Congress.” He’d half-returned her smile — and the next instant, they were on the ground, with a ringing in her ears and Flynn a dead weight on top of her. “Flynn.” Even in the aftermath, she hadn’t realized, at first. “Flynn.” Lucy’s first conclusion, on investigating, was that he’d been knocked unconscious. There was the trickle of blood at his temple to account for it: a glancing blow, a momentary setback. They’d go home, and get it checked out, and he might fall asleep against her on the couch, instead of the other way around. Then, as the ringing in her ears abated, Lucy had taken in the shouting of those around them. Shifting herself a little, she'd taken stock of the twisted piece of shrapnel in the earth next to them. And then she had seen his side.

_I love you, I love you, I love you._

By the time Wyatt reached them, she’d managed to sit up. “We need to get back to the Life—” The word had died on his lips. Lucy had watched him go white; she’d watched him swallow. “Second sleeper agent?”

She’d nodded. She hadn’t been able to make words come. But Wyatt had bellowed for Rufus and, by some miracle, he’d heard. And between them, they'd gotten Flynn away. And ever since, Lucy has been sitting in a makeshift hospital, trying not to think about statistics. Antietam: over twenty thousand men dead. ( _I love you, I love you, I love you._ ) Bloodiest day in US military history. ( _I love you, I love you, I love you._ ) As many deaths from wounds as in battle, and more from disease than either. ( _I love you, I love you, I love you._ ) Odds of surviving as a soldier in the Civil War: 1 in 4. 

_I love you, I love you, I love you._

“Luce,” says Wyatt. His voice is hoarse; she can’t bring herself to look at him steadily. “Lucy, it's been twelve hours.”

“Yes.”

“We can’t... there’s a limit to how long we can stay here. We’ve finished the mission. Denise — Agent Christopher will be going nuts.”

“I know.” She swallows, tries to moisten her lips, tries not to think about statistics. “Do you…” She forces herself to look away from Garcia’s face, forces herself to meet Wyatt’s eyes. “Do you think we should leave him?”

“What? No, Luce, no. No.” Wyatt sighs, and drops to his knees beside her. “You’re the historian. I’m just the brawn of this mission, and I’ll stay as long as you say so.” She chokes back a sob. “Hey.” He puts a hand on her shoulder, squeezes briefly. “Look at me. No one gets left behind, Lucy, okay? That's the last thing I want. And — ” it is Wyatt’s turn to look away, and he clears his throat roughly — “I’d miss the bastard, dammit.”

“Thanks,” she manages. She’s not sure when he leaves.

_I love you, I love you, I love you._

Rufus brings her coffee that she manages to drink, and food that she cannot eat. 

“Don't worry,” he tells her; “there’s always stuff to do after a battle. You’re the historian; you’d be loving this.”

“Yeah,” says Lucy. The hospital is crowded, and staffed by volunteers. Men scream, and curse, and weep. The sounds of which she is most conscious are the rasp of Flynn’s breathing, and the low, insistent humming of the flies.

“I’ll take notes for you,” says Rufus. “Tell him that if he dies on you, I’ll kill him.”

“Thanks,” says Lucy again.

_I love you, I love you, I love you._

The air smells of blood and piss, of death and the fear of death, and of the animal fat that fuels the smoky, guttering lamps. Lucy’s legs are cramped and stiff. She clings to Flynn’s hand with a convulsive grip. “I love you, I love you, I love you.” The volunteer nurses are kind. They tell her about broken ribs, and itemize other injuries known and supposed in language that, under other circumstances, she might find quaint. They help her change his dressings (she’s getting better at field medicine, but she still throws up, the first time.) She helps them with other patients; the space is small enough that she can do so within arm's reach of Flynn. They do not seem particularly surprised to find her here, a woman in a man’s clothing, keeping stubborn vigil. In the long hours, she wonders about those other women, soldiers in their own private wars. ( _I love you, I love you, I love you._ )

“Luce,” says Wyatt, when he comes the second time. “You know that even if — ” He stops, and looks as though he’d like to bite out his own tongue. “Even once he’s conscious,” he says firmly, not fooling her, “Rufus and I are going to have to stretcher him back to the Lifeboat. It’s not going to be pretty, Luce.” He does not say: he might not survive.

“I know," says Lucy. “I know.” Part of her wants to cry, wants to turn against Wyatt’s shoulder and sob her heart out. But what would she do then? What would happen, if she once acknowledged her own fear? What would happen to her, if she once dissolved into tears?

_I love you, I love you, I love you._

When he opens his eyes, it is dark, and she is afraid. Lucy holds her breath, as if anything she might do would tip the balance against him. She hears the echo of the other volunteers’ counsels: inimical consequences of shock. And then — very slowly, it seems — his eyes travel to meet hers. And he smiles.

Lucy realizes that the gasp in her ears is her own, and that she is sobbing without tears. ( _I love you, I love you, I love you._ ) She realizes that she is still holding his hand with both her own; she tells herself she should let go. She can’t.

“Garcia Flynn,” says Lucy, when she can get her breath. “Garcia Flynn, don't you ever — ” She stops. His gaze in the lamplight is still remote. Still he looks at her as though he asks nothing better in this world, to which he finds himself so unexpectedly returned. 

Lucy takes a deep breath. She will not force from him a promise that he cannot keep; she will not do that violence to their partnership. But oh, how she wishes that he cared more for his own danger. Her mouth is dry and her throat is hoarse and she cannot think of what to say to him.

“Garcia Flynn,” says Lucy again, and manages to smile. She manages to swallow. “Garcia Flynn,” she says, “I love you, I love you, I love you, I love — ”

**Author's Note:**

> The title is taken from a letter by a military surgeon, William Child: 
> 
> "The days after the battle are a thousand times worse than the day of the battle – and the physical pain is not the greatest pain suffered. How awful it is - you have not can have until you see it any idea of affairs after a battle. The dead appear sickening but they suffer no pain. But the poor wounded mutilated soldiers that yet have life and sensation make a most horrid picture. I pray God may stop such infernal work - through perhaps he has sent it upon us for our sins. Great indeed must have been our sins if such is our punishment."
> 
>  
> 
> https://www.nps.gov/anti/learn/education/classrooms/antietam-letters-and-diaries-of-soldiers-and-civilians.htm
> 
>  
> 
> I am paranoid about losing my prompt fills to Tumblr's evil whims.


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